The President Who Destroyed the Klan: Ulysses S. Grant, An Unappreciated and Undervalued Leader

By Thomas S. NeubergerMarch 29, 2013

“The Man Who Saved The Union, Ulysses Grant In War And Peace,” by H.W. Brands (Doubleday, 2012). A Review (March 26, 2013):

On the scene in South Carolina federal marshals assisted by army troops rounded up many hundreds of Klansmen and associates. The habeas suspension allowed the arrests to take place far more rapidly than they would have otherwise, because the authorities didn’t have to bring the persons arrested before a judge shortly and charge them with a crime. The effects of the sweep went beyond arrest numbers; many Klansmen fled their home counties ahead of the troops and marshals, some fled the state and a few even fled the country. The detainees overwhelmed the available jails and, after they were eventually indicted, clogged the dockets of the courts.

While President, Ulysses S. Grant destroyed the terrorizing Ku Klux Klan to protect the lives of the freed former slaves. But with the intensely disputed presidential election of 1876 to succeed him in office came the “Compromise of 1877," which gave the White House to the Republican candidate in exchange for the removal of Grant’s federal soldiers from the South and the return of complete control of the region to the racist Southern Democrats. This end of the Reconstruction period enabled the Klan eventually to rise again and to terrorize and murder Blacks until President Lyndon Johnson used the FBI to destroy the Klan a second time, almost 100 years later.

To stop Southern Klan terrorism, President Grant engineered the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871, which in professor Brand’s words “remobilized the engines of the Civil War to deal with the Klan and the violence it practiced.” Against strong political opposition, Grant then used his new powers to the fullest to protect the freed slaves, as is described above. Using the words of the author, perhaps this is the epitaph which should have appeared on Grant’s Tomb – “Grant’s campaign put the fear of federal power into the Klan and shattered its sense of impunity. Not for decades would the nightriders exercise such influence again.” To his everlasting honor, President Grant stood for the absolute protection of the freed Black race in the face of Southern Democratic political, social and cultural tyranny....

Lyndon B. Johnson and the Ku Klux KlanWritten by: Lily (Runhe) Li

Lyndon B. Johnson is the president known for contributing the most to the civil rights movement by passing large legislature such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act. What many do not know is that Lyndon B. Johnson took a personal stance against the Ku Klux Klan, fighting to prosecute them and to eliminate the organization from America.

A Personal Cause

Lyndon B. Johnson’s grandfather (known as “Big Sam”) and father (“Little Sam”) were both politically active. The two Sams sought clemency for Leo Frank, a Jewish victim who was lynched by a mob in 1915 in Atlanta. Due to their outspokenness, the Johnsons were threatened by the Ku Klux Klan in Texas. If they did not withdraw their support for Leo Frank, the Johnsons would be killed. The Johnsons later told friends that they had hid in the cellar of their home while Lyndon Johnson’s father and uncles stood guard on their porch holding shotguns just in case the Ku Klux Klan made good on their threats. These incidents are often cited by Johnson are the cause of his opposition to the Ku Klux Klan’s ideals.

Same Party Enemies

Johnson became the first president to prosecute and arrest Klansmen in the last 93 years (since Ulysses S. Grant). Johnson’s decision to alienate the Ku Klux Klan was even more shocking because he was a Democrat, who relied on the South for a steady vote. Due to his very vocal and daring criticism of the Ku Klux Klan, Lyndon B. Johnson and the Ku Klux Klan became fierce political and ideological enemies.

On March 25th 1965, Viola Liuzzo, a Unitarian Universalist civil rights activist from Michigan was murdered by four Ku Kluz Klan members. The four Klan members were quickly arrested; with “a hooded society of bigots”. Johnson claimed that Viola was killed by “the enemies of justice who for decades have used the rope and the gun and the tar and the feathers in twenty-four hours, President Lyndon Johnson appeared on national television to announce their arrest. In that televised report, Johnson criticized the Ku Klux Klan as to terrorize their neighbors.” Johnson even went as far to say that the KKK “struck by night… for their purpose cannot stand the light of day”. Johnson warned the KKK member to leave the Klan and “return to a decent society before it is too late”. Starting on March 26th, President Johnson called for a full investigation of the Ku Klux Klan. Lyndon Johnson used this opportunity to condemn the actions of the Ku Klux Klan members and used this bout of infamy to persuade Congress to pass the Civil rights Act of 1964.

The Elections of 1964

During the 1964 elections, the Ku Klux Klan fully placed their support on Barry Goldwater. Because a large amount of the Ku Klux Klan were Southern Democrats, this was the first time a Republican made headway into the South, which was previously dominated by the Democratic party. As a result, some of the dirtiest and harshest campaign videos emerged from both sides. Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration did not hesitate to use the fact that the Ku Klux Klan was a supporter of Barry Goldwater to portray him as a man who supported lynching and burning crosses, terrorists and murderers. Johnson was able to successful dirty Goldwater’s name and isolate the Southern Democrats and the Ku Klux Klan in the process. To retaliate, the Ku Klux Klan funded a commercial criticizing the immoral America that seemed too obsessed with sex and luxury, attributing such moral corruption as reflective of the corruption of America’s leader, Lyndon B. Johnson.

A Brave Man

Lyndon B. Johnson may have left office due to his actions in Vietnam, but his loyalty towards domestic matters, especially civil rights cannot be ignored. Although it hurt him politically, Johnson stuck by his values and fully persecuted the Ku Klux Klan, an issue that so many Presidents avoided in order to preserve their political careers. But then again, it does make sense that the tall, charismatic man who towered over you and poked you in the chest while making his point was also the man who had the courage and the unshakable sense of justice to go after one of the most infamous and terrible groups in the United States’s history.

Did President Johnson destroy the Klan, using the FBI? In a certain sense maybe but only to a degree. J. Edgar Hoover was a power unto himself, remember. Weren't elements of the Klan useful in harassing and attacking MLK? Didn't Klansmen lead a lot of violence, as with Greensboro in 1979? Weren't Klan elements pretty well integrated into the power structure in Mississippi, Alabama etc. all through the 60's and into the 70's?

I think this is an important topic but way more complicated- and even contradictory- than sometimes portrayed.

American Dream » Thu Mar 16, 2017 11:30 am wrote:Did President Johnson destroy the Klan, using the FBI? In a certain sense maybe but only to a degree. J. Edgar Hoover was a power unto himself, remember. Weren't elements of the Klan useful in harassing and attacking MLK? Didn't Klansmen lead a lot of violence, as with Greensboro in 1979? Weren't Klan elements pretty well integrated into the power structure in Mississippi, Alabama etc. all through the 60's and into the 70's?

I think this is an important topic but way more complicated- and even contradictory- than sometimes portrayed.

And the notorious use of paid Klan informants working for the FBI is something that has come up in the forums.The crux is the KKK surges back and forth in power without federal attention and crackdowns. How is this presidency going to respond to a growing and increasingly emboldened KKK?

If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. PaulI hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer

The reason Grant & LBJ were able to challenge the Klan is because their efforts counteracted voter intimidation and suppression that helped garner them votes for their liberal parties (for their respective times, Grant was R and LBJ was D) in the South and big cities in the North. Trump and Co. will probably subtly encourage and covertly lead the White Nationalists because they will help rally their white nationalist demographic and possibly/likely intimidate and push out demographics that vote Democratic in key areas. We may be heading back into the genteel apartheid of aristocratic democracy but with corporations being the new plantations. Think "Making America Great Again" like around the gilded age and Jim Crow era.

If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. PaulI hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer

New Jersey Elementary School Asks Students to Design Their Own Slave Auction Posters

We should be confronting the horrors of the past, not recreating them.By wagatwe / DailyKos March 16, 2017

Today in #facepalm: A school in my home state of New Jersey came under fire for a quite the peculiar homework assignment—make your own slave poster! Some teachers mistakenly thought it’d be a good idea to include this in their Colonial America Project. Parents rightfully disagreed.

Parent Jamil Karriem wrote a public post showing how awful this assignment is. Asking children to think like a slave owner or slave seller is offensive and unnecessary. The horror of slavery is quite clear; we don’t need any children doing some light roleplay for “education purposes.”

The assignment made me raise eyebrows, but reading a description of the posters in Jezebel made me slightly sick to my stomach:

Posters included images of people with dark skin and descriptions like “Anne, aged 12 years, a fine house girl” or “Men: aged from 20-26, strong.” Some students also drew advertisements for runaway slaves which offered dollar rewards. One depicted the face of a brown-skinned man: “Wanted,” the poster read in large letters above the picture — and then, underneath it, “dead or alive.”

The school heard the displeasure of the assignment and offered an “apology” that shows why a school managed to get into this mess in the first place (they just don’t get it). Here’s what they said, according to CNN:

Jamil Karriem added 4 new photos.March 7 at 11:34am · MAPSO Community-Have some disheartening news.While we pride ourselves on our towns culture of progression and acceptance, it has come to my attention that South Mountain Elementary School recently instructed its students to draw slave auction pictorials and then proceeded to hang said drawings throughout the hallways of the school. These images were on display for all students (ages ranging from 4-10) to see, including those that would lack any context of the underlying 'lesson' or 'purpose.' Educating young students on the harsh realities of slavery is of course not the issue here, but the medium for said education is grossly insensitive and negligent. In a curriculum that lacks representation for students of color, it breaks my heart that these will be the images that young black and brown kids see of people with their skin color. Furthermore, it is COMPLETELY lost on me how this project could be an effective way to teach any student in any age group about American history.It is the responsibility of the community members to hold the board accountable for the future of our towns education. I beg you to join me in the following:ACTION ITEMSend one e-mail to the following (cc everyone) expressing your outrage and demanding an explanation for what will be done to rectify the situation and ensure it doesn't happen again.boemembers@somsd.k12.nj.us - Board of Edjramos@somsd.k12.nj.us - Superintendent ajacobs@somsd.k12.nj.us - South Mountain PrincipalIn solidarity through struggle,Jamil

"While it was not our intention, we recognize that the example of a slave auction poster, although historically relevant, was culturally insensitive," said Dr. John J. Ramos, Sr., superintendent of the South Orange-Maplewood School District.

"We certainly understand and respect the strong reaction which some parents had to seeing slave auction posters included with other artwork from the assignment," he added in a statement sent to CNN. "We are rethinking the Colonial America Project for next year, and will eliminate the example of a slave auction poster."I think this is a great example when we have clueless educators in charge of teaching really important and sensitive matters, especially in the context of history. Most Americans learned a Eurocentric, whitewashed version of history in school growing up and thus don’t have the nuance and sensitivity to properly address these issues. The principal might mean well, but I wouldn’t trust him to properly teach anyone about racism and slavery.

Students at the school in South Orange were assigned to examine "the ugly and foundational role that slavery played in Colonial America," Ramos said. They were asked to select a colony to research and then complete tasks, including creating ads for slave auctions, using their research, he said.We are supposed to learn our history so we are not doomed to repeat it. So why make children literally repeat racism by participating in the creation of media that dehumanizes Black and Brown faces? Research shows media representation has a marked impact on the self-esteem of children—leaving white boys feeling good, but Black children feeling badly. We should actually challenge and counter the horrors of the past. Not recreate them (with some factual inaccuracies) and place them for display without the proper context and opportunity for learning.http://www.alternet.org/education/new-j ... on-posters

following the evidence from the Russian side of the investigation led the Special Counsel's Office to Roger Stone

I agree with what you said but I will add that while the State does sometimes protect and aid us, it's not because our lives matter so much per se. The whole global chessboard was nearing some serious changes in the LBJ era and if Uncle Sam didn't change his act with regards to Apartheid USA, the whole game was at risk. Similarly, Grant represented the push for a united imperial expansion- for which the Natives suffered so greatly. I think expanding power was always the most important factor- far more than any individual and/or the ideals of Liberalism.

I know this wasn't claimed here but it's important to clarify the point.

brekin » Thu Mar 16, 2017 1:39 pm wrote:The reason Grant & LBJ were able to challenge the Klan is because their efforts counteracted voter intimidation and suppression that helped garner them votes for their liberal parties (for their respective times, Grant was R and LBJ was D) in the South and big cities in the North. Trump and Co. will probably subtly encourage and covertly lead the White Nationalists because they will help rally their white nationalist demographic and possibly/likely intimidate and push out demographics that vote Democratic in key areas. We may be heading back into the genteel apartheid of aristocratic democracy but with corporations being the new plantations. Think "Making America Great Again" like around the gilded age and Jim Crow era.

Last edited by American Dream on Thu Mar 16, 2017 7:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Knights of the Golden Circle (K.G.C.), a secretive organization created in 1854, proposed to establish a slaveholding empire encompassing the southern United States, the West Indies, Mexico, and parts of Central America. Centering on Havana, this empire would be some 2,400 miles in diameter—hence the name Golden Circle. Leaders of the K.G.C. argued that their empire would have a virtual monopoly on the world’s supply of tobacco and sugar and perhaps cotton and have the strength to preserve slavery in the South from constant attacks by northern Abolitionists.

George W. L. Bickley, a Virginia-born doctor, editor, and adventurer, was one of the founders of the K.G.C. According to the records of the K.G.C. convention held in 1860, the organization was “originated at Lexington, Kentucky, on the fourth day of July 1854, by five gentlemen who came together on a call made by Gen. George Bickley….” Bickley then occupied himself with other projects during the mid-1850s, and the K.G.C. did not become active until 1859–1860 when he undertook an organizing campaign across the southern states. As he promoted his organization, Bickley focused on the annexation of Mexico as an essential first step. Newspaper editors across the lower South generally reacted favorably to his message, and Texas proved notably strong in its support. Within a relatively brief time, he organized thirty-two “castles” or local chapters in various cities, including Houston, Galveston, Austin, San Antonio, Marshall, Jefferson, and La Grange. Many prominent Texans joined the K.G.C., and Bickley even courted Gov. Sam Houston, who reportedly became an initiate. Houston, however, regardless of his interest in annexing Mexico to the United States, could not accept the K.G.C.’s anti-Union stance and refused to support its schemes.

In the spring of 1860, a small group of K.G.C. members gathered at the Rio Grande for an invasion of Mexico, but Bickley failed to appear with a large force that he claimed to be assembling in New Orleans, and nothing came of the venture. A group of Knights in New Orleans then publicly attacked him as a liar, coward, and inept leader. Bickley responded by calling a general convention of the K.G.C., which met in Raleigh, North Carolina, on May 7–11, 1860. The convention confirmed Bickley as leader and published a lengthy address to the people of the southern states that remains the most reliable statement of the K.G.C.’s organization and goals.

Like many other secretive societies, the K.G.C. had an elaborate ritual with codes, signs, and passwords, and complicated plans for its military and governing operations. Knights were grouped into three divisions—military, commercial and financial, and political—each of which was in turn divided into two classes. For example, the military division comprised the Foreign Guard, those men who wished “to participate in the wild, glorious and thrilling adventures of a campaign in Mexico” and the Home Guard, men who would support military efforts from home. Bickley created, on paper at least, an army of 16,000 men.

The K.G.C. developed a second plan for invading Mexico later in 1860, but it proved abortive as attention turned to the presidential election and the secession movement that followed immediately across the lower South. Unionists in Texas claimed that the K.G.C. played a role in reducing the vote for Constitutional Unionists (see CONSTITUTIONAL UNION PARTY) in November 1860 and in keeping Unionist voters from the polls when the state held a referendum on secession in February 1861. Once Texas seceded in March 1861, individual Knights participated in the actions that displaced the authority of the United States in Texas, leading some Unionists such as James P. Newcomb to emphasize the role of the organization in destroying the Union. The truth of all these charges cannot be determined with certainty, but secession definitely represented majority opinion across the state regardless of the K.G.C.’s role.

During the Civil War, leaders of the K.G.C. served in the Confederate Army not as members of the society’s military division per se, but simply as soldiers in the southern cause. Elkanah Greer of Marshall, for example, served with distinction as colonel of the Third Texas Cavalry, a unit in the cavalry brigade commanded by future governor L. Sullivan Ross. The K.G.C. itself probably received greater attention during the war for its supposed role in a treasonous plot variously called the “Northwest Conspiracy,” the “Copperhead Movement,” and similar names in the old Northwestern states such as Indiana and Ohio. Joseph Holt, United States Judge Advocate General, submitted a report in October 1864 that warned Secretary of War Edwin Stanton about the danger of this plot, which he attributed at times to the K.G.C. and at other times to different treasonous groups. If such a plot existed, nothing came of it, suggesting that the rumors were just that or that the K.G.C. did not have the strength attributed to it in such reports.

Victory by the Union in the Civil War destroyed the cause for which the K.G.C. had been created and, therefore, ended its life. Bickley, who served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army before being arrested as a spy in Indiana in July 1863 and held until October1865, died in August 1867. Reports of K.G.C. activity circulated for a few more years, but there is no dependable evidence that the organization survived the war in any meaningful way. Perhaps the greatest historical significance that can be assigned to the K.G.C. is its contribution to creating the emotional excitement necessary to persuading southerners to rebel against the United States.

Secretive organizations such as the K.G.C. create an atmosphere of conspiracy, of claims and charges that cannot be proven true but cannot be proven untrue either. It should come as no surprise then that the K.G.C. has drawn the interest of numerous investigators who claim that it was a vast conspiracy that drew inspiration from groups such as the European Knights Templar, Scottish Rite Masons, and the Sons of Liberty. These investigators also allege that many famed characters from the Civil War era, including John Wilkes Booth and Jesse James, belonged to and acted under the influence of the Knights. Some argue that the Knights buried millions of dollars in stolen U.S. Army payrolls in locations across the Southwest, where the money (now worth billions) remained under guard into the mid-twentieth century and perhaps even now. These conspiracy stories associated with the Knights of the Golden Circle are now part of the historical record associated with the organization, but none of them can be reliably documented.

Secretive organizations such as the K.G.C. create an atmosphere of conspiracy, of claims and charges that cannot be proven true but cannot be proven untrue either. It should come as no surprise then that the K.G.C. has drawn the interest of numerous investigators who claim that it was a vast conspiracy that drew inspiration from groups such as the European Knights Templar, Scottish Rite Masons, and the Sons of Liberty. These investigators also allege that many famed characters from the Civil War era, including John Wilkes Booth and Jesse James, belonged to and acted under the influence of the Knights. Some argue that the Knights buried millions of dollars in stolen U.S. Army payrolls in locations across the Southwest, where the money (now worth billions) remained under guard into the mid-twentieth century and perhaps even now. These conspiracy stories associated with the Knights of the Golden Circle are now part of the historical record associated with the organization, but none of them can be reliably documented.

Yes, interesting. If not obviously or cleanly a fully linked up conspiracy to other groups or events (Lincoln's assassination, the sabotaging of Reconstruction, etc.) shows that such groups can have enormous influence, and attempt even more. Fringe groups seem to be an anomaly or anachronism until current events sync with them, even briefly. And then its just a matter of the social network and opportunities.

If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. PaulI hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer

A gathering in Seattle during the Ku Klux Klan’s revival of the early 20th century.

Before the Klan, there was a precedent on the Coast for secretive, guerilla-style groups. A predecessor was the Knights of the Golden Circle, Southern sympathizers who promoted secession of the Confederacy and a larger, hemispheric plan to spread slavery. During the War, they were said to operate as a kind of Fifth Column in the North and in the West. They formed a secretive, armed group—also sometimes called the Knights of the Columbian Star–who schemed to take California, Oregon and Washington Territory out of the union to form a Pacific Republic sympathetic to the South. The Knights are considered by historians to have provided a template for the post-war Klan.

CONFRONTING THE RIGHT ACROSS GENERATIONS: SPENCER SUNSHINE INTERVIEWS WALTER REEVES

By Spencer Sunshine, on December 9, 2013

In 1990, when I was a teenager, I met and began working with Walter Reeves and other members of Neighbors Network—an anti-Klan, anti-Nazi group based in Atlanta, GA. Reeves was its co-chair of education and outreach from 1989 until the group’s dissolution in 1996.

Against the background of the Reagan administration’s coded, racist language, the late-1980s and early 1990s were marked by a surge in Far Right organizing in the United States. Across the South, and especially in Georgia, the traditional distinctions between Nazis and various independent Klans were eroding. In Forsyth County, which long had a reputation as a “sundown county” where no African-Americans had lived since 1912, a stone-throwing mob disrupted and ended a march organized by civil-rights activists in 1987. The following week, 10,000 civil rights marchers were confronted by thousands of counter-protestors in the same place. This counter-protest is considered the largest pro-segregation rally in the country since the end of the Civil Rights Movement.

Emboldened by the weak response from local governments, Klan groups held frequent public events in Georgia. These ranged from handing out flyers at shopping malls to holding rallies with hundreds of Nazi skinheads. These groups committed numerous assaults on queer folks, people of color, immigrants, the homeless, and antiracist activists. While these actions were generally condemned, they nevertheless helped fuel more mainstream and “legitimate” right-wing activism, such as the Cobb County Commission’s 1993 resolution that condemned “lifestyles advocated by the gay community.”

Neighbors Network was formed to counter the activism and spreading influence of the Far Right in Georgia. I learned of the organization through its anti-Nazi flyers in Atlanta’s Little Five Points neighborhood. I and other teenage punk rockers formed a small, antiracist youth group focused on making antifascist propaganda in the metro Atlanta punk scene. While we were formally independent of Neighbors Network, we worked closely with Reeves and other members.

After Neighbors Network folded in 1996, Reeves remained active in antiwar politics and racial and economic justice issues. He was the Georgia Green Party’s press secretary during Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign, and he was a founding member of the first Atlanta Indymedia Collective. He participated in the anti-Iraq War movement and the continuing attempts to close the School of the Americas, as well as the 2004 antiglobalization actions at the Group of Seven meeting at Sea Island, Georgia. Today, he is a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and a militant unionist. He continues to write and cartoon from a radical perspective, and he is working on a memoir about the Neighbors Network.

A glossary is supplied below. Links are also provided for Reeves’s publications, including “Hatred in Georgia” and some of his recent writings.

—Spencer Sunshine, PRA associate fellow

I remember vividly the big books of pictures that Neighbors Network took at Klan and Nazi rallies. When someone was assaulted or threatened, you would show them the books and attempt to identify the person. If the person who was attacked wanted to press charges, you would help them navigate the judicial system. If people were threatened at their homes, the armed members of the group would stay with them at night. There was an annual report that you released, “Hatred in Georgia,” detailing racist organizing and violence in Georgia. What else did Neighbors Network do?

Our yearly report “Hatred in Georgia,” which tracked hate crime and hate-group activity in the state, was extremely useful in raising public awareness. It also served to deprive the Klan and Nazis of one of their main strengths: their anonymity. The more names that we attached to faces, the fewer unknown faces were available. We found that this sort of exposure had a dampening effect on the violence and intimidation practiced by these groups.

We also worked with a host of civic and community groups along with local and state organizations. These included the NAACP, churches, synagogues, the Governor’s Human Relations Commission, the Mexican Consulate, the [Georgia] State Legislative Black Caucus, and the MLK Day March Committee, among others. This work took us all over the state as well as parts of Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee. I even had the occasion to address Kiwanis and Optimist Club meetings, if you can imagine that!

The goal of this work was to promote the development of local centers of resistance to white supremacist and Nazi activity in communities that had been targeted by such groups. Usually the first step was to help determine just who and what a particular community was up against. Whenever we got word of Klan activity in a community, we would contact local organizations to determine what their level of awareness was and to share whatever information we had with them.

This [outreach] was useful because people seldom had more than a superficial knowledge of the specific group or individuals they were confronting. Naturally, they tended to view their problem as a purely local one. In fact, the agitation in their communities was part of an overall pattern of activity with larger goals. Once they understood the Klan’s larger strategy, as well as being able to identify the individuals and organizations involved, it enabled them to recognize the need for active counter-organizing and to develop an effective strategy.

Further, our involvement as an organization from outside the community insured that the situation faced by local residents would receive wider public attention. This strengthened resistance by reducing the community’s isolation and increased public pressure on officials and business and community leaders to take action, whereas without such public scrutiny they might have preferred to look the other way. When we began our work, the general attitude among such folk was along the lines of “Ignore them and they will go away.” Our role was, in part, to make the case that this attitude was utterly mistaken.

The forms such resistance took varied according to local circumstances. We took it as a given that only those living in a particular community could determine what was appropriate and effective in their locality. This took a good deal of close cooperation and coordination on our part and required a significant investment of time and energy. The most important long term tactic was educating people to the presence and activity of hate groups and the threat they posed. When people in a community decided on a course of action, our role was to share expertise and resources to support their efforts.

This approach contrasted sharply with that of other outside groups who might roll into a town on the day of a Klan rally, engage in a raucous confrontation before the media cameras, and then leave the local residents to deal with the aftermath on their own.

We also engaged in what we described as recovering people from hate groups. That is, supporting and defending people who had decided to break from such groups. This took a number of different forms. Sometimes we were contacted by parents who had discovered their children’s involvement and were looking for information and resources. On other occasions, we were approached directly by people who were trying to find a way out on their own.

It’s important to note that the research and monitoring work that we did was crucial in supporting our community work. Very often it was left to us to identify to the locals, the organizations, and individuals that had targeted their communities. It wasn’t readily apparent to many of them that their local problems were part of a larger, statewide and interstate pattern of agitation and organization.

In retrospect, I encountered you during a significant revival of the KKK/neo-Nazi movement in the United States, in one of its strongholds. Of course, I didn’t realize that I was stuck in this fulcrum at an unfortunate time. What was your opinion of what was going on, and how did you all see what you were engaged in? Some activists thought that antifascism was in opposition to a growing national fascism, and that these groups were the Republican Party’s “brownshirts” in a rather literal way.

I don’t doubt that in specific instances there may have been tacit alliances between particular Republicans and certain fascist elements, in fact I have direct knowledge of one local case, but the notion that these amounted to any sort of organizational command and control shows a lack of comprehension for the character of the white supremacist and Nazi movements. I think that such an analysis has more to do with pre-existing political fixations than reality. The political advantages of this position are plain, in that it allowed one to lump all elements of the Right together under the label of fascist and tie that tin can to the GOP’s tail. Unfortunately this distorts the unique character of fascism as a social and political phenomenon.

This, in my opinion, was a fundamental and tragic error. Two key elements of fascism are its mass base and its disregard for standards of bourgeois legality. Any political entity possessing these two attributes possesses all it needs to pursue an autonomous, radical, and even revolutionary course.

The failure of the left to appreciate this reality led to fatal miscalculations when it confronted the development of National Socialism. It treated the radical and revolutionary pretensions of the Nazis as play acting designed to confuse the working class and saw Hitler as nothing more than a paid stooge. Consequently, they failed to understand the actual threat posed by Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, imagining that he would be used up and easily deposed of as so many bourgeois politicians before him. Hence the grotesque slogan of “After Hitler, Thälmann!”

Of course this excludes other arguably fascist but distinct forces, such as those under the heading of the Religious Right or the “patriot” movement. These clearly developed into a reserve constituency for the Republicans, and the GOP has acted to shield them in moments of crisis, such as the Oklahoma City bombing. They are distinct from avowedly white supremacist and Nazi elements but tap into the same social forces that have historically fed such groups. This means that while they are distinct politically and organizationally, they possess an organic linkage by virtue of drawing on the same social base. This organic relationship produces a far more complex and contradictory reality than is allowed for by mechanistic theoretical conceptions.

CONFRONTING THE RIGHT ACROSS GENERATIONS: SPENCER SUNSHINE INTERVIEWS WALTER REEVES

By Spencer Sunshine, on December 9, 2013

In 1990, when I was a teenager, I met and began working with Walter Reeves and other members of Neighbors Network—an anti-Klan, anti-Nazi group based in Atlanta, GA. Reeves was its co-chair of education and outreach from 1989 until the group’s dissolution in 1996.

Against the background of the Reagan administration’s coded, racist language, the late-1980s and early 1990s were marked by a surge in Far Right organizing in the United States. Across the South, and especially in Georgia, the traditional distinctions between Nazis and various independent Klans were eroding. In Forsyth County, which long had a reputation as a “sundown county” where no African-Americans had lived since 1912, a stone-throwing mob disrupted and ended a march organized by civil-rights activists in 1987. The following week, 10,000 civil rights marchers were confronted by thousands of counter-protestors in the same place. This counter-protest is considered the largest pro-segregation rally in the country since the end of the Civil Rights Movement.

Emboldened by the weak response from local governments, Klan groups held frequent public events in Georgia. These ranged from handing out flyers at shopping malls to holding rallies with hundreds of Nazi skinheads. These groups committed numerous assaults on queer folks, people of color, immigrants, the homeless, and antiracist activists. While these actions were generally condemned, they nevertheless helped fuel more mainstream and “legitimate” right-wing activism, such as the Cobb County Commission’s 1993 resolution that condemned “lifestyles advocated by the gay community.”

Neighbors Network was formed to counter the activism and spreading influence of the Far Right in Georgia. I learned of the organization through its anti-Nazi flyers in Atlanta’s Little Five Points neighborhood. I and other teenage punk rockers formed a small, antiracist youth group focused on making antifascist propaganda in the metro Atlanta punk scene. While we were formally independent of Neighbors Network, we worked closely with Reeves and other members.

After Neighbors Network folded in 1996, Reeves remained active in antiwar politics and racial and economic justice issues. He was the Georgia Green Party’s press secretary during Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign, and he was a founding member of the first Atlanta Indymedia Collective. He participated in the anti-Iraq War movement and the continuing attempts to close the School of the Americas, as well as the 2004 antiglobalization actions at the Group of Seven meeting at Sea Island, Georgia. Today, he is a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and a militant unionist. He continues to write and cartoon from a radical perspective, and he is working on a memoir about the Neighbors Network.

A glossary is supplied below. Links are also provided for Reeves’s publications, including “Hatred in Georgia” and some of his recent writings.

—Spencer Sunshine, PRA associate fellow

I remember vividly the big books of pictures that Neighbors Network took at Klan and Nazi rallies. When someone was assaulted or threatened, you would show them the books and attempt to identify the person. If the person who was attacked wanted to press charges, you would help them navigate the judicial system. If people were threatened at their homes, the armed members of the group would stay with them at night. There was an annual report that you released, “Hatred in Georgia,” detailing racist organizing and violence in Georgia. What else did Neighbors Network do?

Our yearly report “Hatred in Georgia,” which tracked hate crime and hate-group activity in the state, was extremely useful in raising public awareness. It also served to deprive the Klan and Nazis of one of their main strengths: their anonymity. The more names that we attached to faces, the fewer unknown faces were available. We found that this sort of exposure had a dampening effect on the violence and intimidation practiced by these groups.

We also worked with a host of civic and community groups along with local and state organizations. These included the NAACP, churches, synagogues, the Governor’s Human Relations Commission, the Mexican Consulate, the [Georgia] State Legislative Black Caucus, and the MLK Day March Committee, among others. This work took us all over the state as well as parts of Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee. I even had the occasion to address Kiwanis and Optimist Club meetings, if you can imagine that!

The goal of this work was to promote the development of local centers of resistance to white supremacist and Nazi activity in communities that had been targeted by such groups. Usually the first step was to help determine just who and what a particular community was up against. Whenever we got word of Klan activity in a community, we would contact local organizations to determine what their level of awareness was and to share whatever information we had with them.

This [outreach] was useful because people seldom had more than a superficial knowledge of the specific group or individuals they were confronting. Naturally, they tended to view their problem as a purely local one. In fact, the agitation in their communities was part of an overall pattern of activity with larger goals. Once they understood the Klan’s larger strategy, as well as being able to identify the individuals and organizations involved, it enabled them to recognize the need for active counter-organizing and to develop an effective strategy.

Further, our involvement as an organization from outside the community insured that the situation faced by local residents would receive wider public attention. This strengthened resistance by reducing the community’s isolation and increased public pressure on officials and business and community leaders to take action, whereas without such public scrutiny they might have preferred to look the other way. When we began our work, the general attitude among such folk was along the lines of “Ignore them and they will go away.” Our role was, in part, to make the case that this attitude was utterly mistaken.

The forms such resistance took varied according to local circumstances. We took it as a given that only those living in a particular community could determine what was appropriate and effective in their locality. This took a good deal of close cooperation and coordination on our part and required a significant investment of time and energy. The most important long term tactic was educating people to the presence and activity of hate groups and the threat they posed. When people in a community decided on a course of action, our role was to share expertise and resources to support their efforts.

This approach contrasted sharply with that of other outside groups who might roll into a town on the day of a Klan rally, engage in a raucous confrontation before the media cameras, and then leave the local residents to deal with the aftermath on their own.

We also engaged in what we described as recovering people from hate groups. That is, supporting and defending people who had decided to break from such groups. This took a number of different forms. Sometimes we were contacted by parents who had discovered their children’s involvement and were looking for information and resources. On other occasions, we were approached directly by people who were trying to find a way out on their own.

It’s important to note that the research and monitoring work that we did was crucial in supporting our community work. Very often it was left to us to identify to the locals, the organizations, and individuals that had targeted their communities. It wasn’t readily apparent to many of them that their local problems were part of a larger, statewide and interstate pattern of agitation and organization.

In retrospect, I encountered you during a significant revival of the KKK/neo-Nazi movement in the United States, in one of its strongholds. Of course, I didn’t realize that I was stuck in this fulcrum at an unfortunate time. What was your opinion of what was going on, and how did you all see what you were engaged in? Some activists thought that antifascism was in opposition to a growing national fascism, and that these groups were the Republican Party’s “brownshirts” in a rather literal way.

I don’t doubt that in specific instances there may have been tacit alliances between particular Republicans and certain fascist elements, in fact I have direct knowledge of one local case, but the notion that these amounted to any sort of organizational command and control shows a lack of comprehension for the character of the white supremacist and Nazi movements. I think that such an analysis has more to do with pre-existing political fixations than reality. The political advantages of this position are plain, in that it allowed one to lump all elements of the Right together under the label of fascist and tie that tin can to the GOP’s tail. Unfortunately this distorts the unique character of fascism as a social and political phenomenon.

This, in my opinion, was a fundamental and tragic error. Two key elements of fascism are its mass base and its disregard for standards of bourgeois legality. Any political entity possessing these two attributes possesses all it needs to pursue an autonomous, radical, and even revolutionary course.

The failure of the left to appreciate this reality led to fatal miscalculations when it confronted the development of National Socialism. It treated the radical and revolutionary pretensions of the Nazis as play acting designed to confuse the working class and saw Hitler as nothing more than a paid stooge. Consequently, they failed to understand the actual threat posed by Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, imagining that he would be used up and easily deposed of as so many bourgeois politicians before him. Hence the grotesque slogan of “After Hitler, Thälmann!”

Of course this excludes other arguably fascist but distinct forces, such as those under the heading of the Religious Right or the “patriot” movement. These clearly developed into a reserve constituency for the Republicans, and the GOP has acted to shield them in moments of crisis, such as the Oklahoma City bombing. They are distinct from avowedly white supremacist and Nazi elements but tap into the same social forces that have historically fed such groups. This means that while they are distinct politically and organizationally, they possess an organic linkage by virtue of drawing on the same social base. This organic relationship produces a far more complex and contradictory reality than is allowed for by mechanistic theoretical conceptions.

Since 1981, Political Research Associates' (PRA) mission has been to challenge the Right and advance social justice.

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Neo-confederate southern-secessionist League of the South president Michael Hill warned last week about the “coming civil war in America.”

Such threats were common during the Obama administration, when it wasn’t hard to find right-wing activists warning of violent revolution; even Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin warned at the Values Voter Summit last September that if Hillary Clinton won the nation might only recover from tyranny through the blood of “patriots” and “tyrants.”

But apparently Trump’s victory was not enough to satisfy Hill, who complains about progressive activists’ resistance to the current administration and the “elite, Jew-dominated media” that he says “have run interference for the left by pushing the anti-nationalist, progressive Narrative non stop.” Unlike other white nationalists, Hill had not been particularly excited about Trump’s candidacy. But immediately after Trump’s election last November, Hill saw opportunity and called for “no mercy” for “the enemies of our God, our Folk and our civilization”:

Once the globalist-progressive coalition of Jews, minorities, and anti-white whites stops reeling in confusion from the results of yesterday’s election, we can expect them to start striking back with trickery and violence. Thus, we as Southern nationalists face both danger and opportunity.

Now, more than ever, we need tight organization and numbers to help drive a stake through Dracula’s heart and keep him from rising once again to menace our people and civilization. No mercy should be shown to the enemies of our God, our Folk, and our civilization. None would be afforded us.Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration wasn’t enough for Hill, who called for deportation of all Muslims “and all other Third World immigrants.”

In his recent missive, Hill warned that it could only take one incident in which a supporter of one side or the other is killed to bring about “conflagration.” But he sees that as inevitable anyway:

I have long been convinced that the US was headed for a real civil war (that conflict from 1861-65 was not a “civil war” but a war between two sovereign nations) and that the left would precipitate it by their intolerance of any rule but their own. Their leftist ideology simply will not allow them to compromise for the sake of establishing a stable society in which differences are worked out peacefully by well- and long-established means.

For the left, the so-called virtues of tolerance and diversity are ploys to be used against gullible conservatives. The left itself has no truck with either. They are interested only in establishing an ideological state that is at base anti-white and anti-Christian. It is high time “conservatives” wake up to the game that has been worked so successfully against them for the last half century.

When someone like Trump, who ostensibly represents the interests of the normal white middle and working classes who elected him, stands in the way of the leftist work of progressing toward the establishment of their ideological state, leftists behave as they are at present–with violence and obstruction.

The US has ceased to be a governable polity in 2017. It must split into at least two (and preferably more) separate, sovereign political entities to accommodate the two fundamental sides or it must be plagued with hostilities that ultimately will lead to open conflict and bloodshed on a scale unimaginable since World War Two in a civilized part of the world.

Michael Peroutka, the far-right former Constitution Party presidential candidate who is now a Republican county councilmember in Maryland, left the League of the South when his membership drew unfavorable attention during his 2014 election campaign. But he still said he didn’t have any problem with the organization. Indeed, Peroutka spoke at the group’s 2012 convention, where he asked participants to stand for the “national anthem” and then started singing “Dixie.” None of that prevented Peroutka from being welcomed by other right-wing leaders into membership in the secretive right-wing Council for National Policy network.